Duci and Abrams had pulled up a log for seats for themselves. Now, they held their breath just as Lyssa did as Madame lifted the top card from the deck and place it and two other cards face down.
“This is the Past,” Madame said. “Here is the Present.” She laid a row of three cards beneath the first. Then, she took the next card off the deck and pressed it into Lyssa’s hands. “This is your Future. Hold it tightly and do not look until I am ready.”
Lyssa nodded, conscious of the power of the card in her hand.
“Why do you not give her three cards for her Future like you have for the Past and Present, Mama?” Duci asked. “I have not seen you do this before.”
“I do as the cards bid,” Madame replied dismissively and turned over the first card in the row signifying Lyssa’s past. Her eyebrows came up and she made a soft sound of acknowledgement. “The Seven of Cups.” Her dark gaze met Lyssa’s. “The Lord of Debauch.”
Lyssa stared at the drawing of seven cups spilling their contents into what appeared to be a river of wine. “What does it mean?”
“That you have been surrounded by a multitude of many pleasures in your past. Pleasures that perhaps you don’t trust and may even fear.”
“This is true,” Lyssa whispered under her breath. She did fear theton, their many excesses, their different codes of conduct and double standards. In spite of her father’s wealth and the grand home and beautiful clothes, she preferred a simpler life. Her books were her most valued possessions. Nor did she like the idea of being married to a husband who thought about nothing but spending money. She wanted a man like her father had been, one who had cherished the memory of his wife, until he became besotted of that woman.
Madame turned over the second card. Her smile turned grim as if she were not surprised. Ten silver staffs crisscrossedyellow-orange flames. “The Lord of Oppression. You have felt frustrated, angry. You want to be free.”
“I want to find my roots,” Lyssa acknowledged. “I want to meet my mother’s clan.” She leaned forward. “Will I?”
“We still have a card in your past,” Madame replied and flipped over the last in the row with the tip of her nail. A huge wheel covered the face of the card. Tapping the card, Madame said, “The wheel of fortune turns and we poor mortals struggle.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why. There is abundance enough for all in the world. This card holds the secret of turning events to your advantage. And that is what you have done in leaving your past.”
Reverend Billows might claim fortune-telling was nonsense and even heresy but Lyssa felt immense relief that the cards seemed to be saying she’d made the right decision when she ran away.
Smiling now, Madame flipped over the first card of Lyssa’s Present and then frowned.
Duci gasped and said, “Death.” Abrams crossed himself.
Lyssa did not like the picture of a grinning skeleton that appeared to be dancing on a grave. “What does it mean?”
“Nothing like what you fear it does,” Madame hurried to assure her. “When Death appears, it means there will be a change in your life, the kind of change that will alter you forever.”
“Well, that’s what I have right now,” Lyssa responded, relieved.
Madame shook her head. “No. Death would be in your Past if that were its meaning. Here, it is telling us something completely different. The change is now. This moment…and something beyond our simple camp.”
Lyssa glanced around at the darkness beyond the ring of firelight. Was it her imagination or did the shadow of the fir trees seem closer and more looming than before? She looked back to Madame. “My father—?”
“You will not be with us much longer.” Madame did not wait but overturned the next card. What it revealed was even more alarming.
“The Hanged Man,” Abrams said. The card was of the figure of a man hanging upside down from a tree branch. His hands appeared tied behind his back.
Madame Linka nodded. “You are vulnerable, Viveka,” she said, her raspy voice menacing in the silence. “Whatever will be, you must accept. Your destiny is at hand and you must find strength within to meet it.”
Lyssa did not like this fortune…especially when deep in her bones she sensed an element of truth, of warning.
Madame turned over the third card of the Present. A naked woman sat astride a giant creature that was half lion, half man. The woman’s head was tilted back as if in joy, one hand raised toward a shining star. The card made Lyssa uncomfortable, yetthere was power in the strength of the girl’s legs hugging the creature.
The card upset Madame Linka.
She started muttering to herself in Romany and pushed the cards on the tray before her, attempting to create a new alignment. Duci and Abrams understood what she was saying. They exchanged glances and Duci touched the cross hanging from the leather tie at her throat.
“What is it?” Lyssa asked. “What do you see? Why are you upset?”
Madame raised dark, concerned eyes to her. “The cards do not speak sense,” she said, her voice full of foreboding.
Lyssa reached toward the card of the woman. “What is the meaning of this card?”
With a sharp gesture, Madame pushed Lyssa’s hand away. Then, reverently, she placed the card in a row, flanked by Death and the Hanged Man. She held her palms over the cards as if they radiated some hidden power only she could divine.
